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SFO Served an All-Time Record 55.8 Million Passengers in 2017

January 2018

New milestone powers jobs and business activity in local communities

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) today announced a new all-time record for traffic, serving 55,832,518 passengers in 2017. With this new milestone, SFO caps fourteen years of consistent passenger traffic growth, setting new records for passenger traffic every year since 2011. While passenger traffic has grown by 36% since 2011, the number of flights at SFO has only grown by 14%, validating SFO’s smart traffic growth efforts, which encourage airlines to increase capacity by using larger aircraft wherever possible, in lieu of adding more flights. The effectiveness of this strategy is also measured by the average number of seats per aircraft at SFO. In 2011, the average flight at SFO held 134 seats. By 2017, that number had risen to 158 seats per aircraft.

“This new passenger traffic record shows our continued commitment to smart growth at SFO, encouraging airlines to add seats before adding flights," said Airport Director Ivar C. Satero. "Traffic growth gives travelers more airlines and more destinations to choose from, but local communities also benefit from the resulting increases in employment and business activity."

Economic Impact

In its most recent economic impact study, SFO continues to make a significant contribution to Bay Area economies. Highlights from the report include:

SFO directly accounted for more than $8.4 billion in business activity in the 2016-2017 Fiscal Year, and over 42,800 direct jobs at the Airport.

Factoring off-site business activities that depend directly on local air service for staff movements, cargo deliveries, or visitor spending, SFO contributed $35.7 billion in business sales with approximately 165,000 jobs to Bay Area economies.

The indirect and direct spin-off activities associated with suppliers of goods and services to directly affected businesses, and the re-spending of additional worker income on consumer goods and services, raises the total regional economic impact to over $62.5 billion in business sales, including $20.9 billion in total payroll and over 300,300 jobs.

New airlines, destinations at SFO in 2017
February ....... new nonstop service to Tampa, FL on United
March ........... new nonstop service to Manchester, England on Virgin Atlantic
May............... new airline, Thomas Cook, also serving Manchester, England
June.............. new airline, Finnair, with new nonstop service to Helsinki, Finland

New airlines, destinations announced in 2018
March ........... new airline, Hong Kong Airlines, serving Hong Kong
March............ new airline, Interjet, serving Cancun and Guadalajara, Mexico
April ...............new airline, Iberia Airlines, with new nonstop service to Madrid, Spain
May................ new nonstop service to Edmonton, Canada on Air Canada
June............... new airline, Icelandair, with nonstop service to Reykjavík, Iceland
June ...............new nonstop service to Des Moines, Iowa on Frontier
June............... new nonstop service to Madison, Wisconsin on United
September..... new nonstop service to Melbourne, Australia on Qantas
October ..........new nonstop service to Papeete, Tahiti on United